[Josephus Holt]

Did anyone find out why NL used 9 cpu's for their coop render demo instead of 8 cpu's which would require only 2 licenses?

Also, what is the minimum req'd RAM config per machine?

Thx.

[lllab]

i guess the tester just had 9 cpus around- so its just by accident.

i have a 12cpu license and will use it, some guys here have 100*cpu licenses and use it...

all works no matter how much or how strong each cpu is- (says the testers...)

cheers
stefan

[Josephus Holt]

Thx Stefan. Wondered if there was something magical about the number 9, like it being a max return on investment (i.e. max render efficiency vs min # of cpu's). Probably should not bring up the subject of ROI here

[Matt Hsu]

Wondered if there is any data transfer collision problem,may be 9 cpu is best for effiency,you can add more cpu but the performance won't increase as expected.

[Josephus Holt]

Matt, that's the sort of thing I was wondering too, that 9 cpu's is the minimum number that generates the greatest return per cpu.

Unfortunately, NL did not reply when I emailed them, and seems like others seem to feel like it was more of a random thing...they had 9 cpu's available to do that testing.

Would be nice to get a clarification from NL or maybe someone on the A-Team knows???

[lllab]

no this just happens with systems using DR distribution.

actually NL s system is more efficient. you can use 100cpus on one image and it is almost same efficient "grade" as using 10 machines.-almost liniear.

with 10 machines it is 1/10 time, with 100 it is theroreticly 1/100. but in reality i would guess with 100 machine you need avery good network setup, you probably get80-90x speed.

the only extra "cost" is the small time joining the rendered mxi's. somebody mentioned it takes only a few seconds.

cheers
stefan

[Mihai]

with 100 machine you need avery good network setup, you probably get80-90x speed.

You would only need to send the scene (mxs) to each machine, once it starts rendering that's it, I think there are no transfers during rendering. When it's done say 4 hours later, you copy the resulting mxi from each machine to one folder, and then merge them.

[Josephus Holt]

Sounds good, thx for the input....now for a bunch of low cost machines

Any suggestions on minimum RAM for each machine (I would guess 1GB)?